I’ve decided compile a pre-alpha build of Jolly for interested early adopters to try out. It’s available on GitHub using the link below. I’ll be following up with more pre-alpha builds in the coming weeks. It should be underscored that these pre-alpha builds aren’t fully functional and lack many of the basic features, including playback of video files. This will of course be improved over time. The GitHub link also includes a public check list of things I have yet to add, improve or fix. Once everything on the check list has been completed, I’ll kick off the public alpha test. Please read the check list and notes before downloading. Despite being an extremely early build that hasn’t been tested on anything but my Nexus 6P running Android N, I’m very interested to know what you think. The entire purpose of these pre-alpha builds is to get very early feedback and hopefully improve the final product. You can download the first pre-alpha build here: https://github.com/MizzleDK/Jolly/issues/1 PS. I’ll be using this site to post some of the Jolly updates in the coming months. I’ll eventually create a new website specifically for...

It’s been nearly a year since my last post. I’m not even sure how many will read this. Much has happened since then and – most importantly – I’m feeling a lot better. As a result, I’ve picked up development again, although it’ll be significantly different this time. Changes to come First and foremost, Mizuu will be dropped and a new app will rise in its ashes. I promise you, it’ll be Jolly good. Secondly, there’ll be a series of alpha builds for you guys to try out. Mizuu provides the foundation of the new app, but there’s a lot of changes in there as well. As Mizuu grew in popularity and user engagement, I added a number of features that had been asked for, but perhaps wasn’t in line with my own vision of the app. The upcoming app will lack a number of both simple and advanced features of Mizuu. Thirdly, my spare time is significantly more limited now than it was two or three years ago. If I am to create a new app, I need to be able to focus on that – and less on user support. I’ll be happy to receive feedback as we go along, but I won’t be able to help with any issues unless they’re related to bugs in the app. There’ll be a help section to deal with troubleshooting. Finally, the app will be available for smartphones and tablets running Android 5.0 or later. The main reason for this is that it allows me to get work done faster. Android 5.0 or later is on more than 40% of the devices accessing Google Play today and likely more than 50%...

I’ve been a fan of Michael Jackson for as long as I can remember, and there’s no denying this post title is heavily inspired by the title of his final concert series, “This is it”, in an effort to convey the same message. This is it. I’m not a fan of drawing things out, so without further ado: I will no longer be able to develop, maintain or support Mizuu and its user base. I’ve always been good at starting projects, but I was never good at maintaining interest. Mizuu was the one exception and something I kept working on for several years, but everything has to come to an end. As mentioned in the last couple of blog posts I’ve lost my passion and for the past six months it’s felt more like an unwanted job than a hobby or personal project. I don’t think it’s healthy – not for the application / project itself nor me personally. Personal health issues I’ve been experiencing some health issues since September last year and it’s something that I’m still dealing with today. Thankfully, it’s a lot better today than it was back then, but I’m still not doing great. I was burned out and experiencing just about every possible stress symptom at once. Not only mentally, but physically as well. I could feel my body “giving up” and I was having trouble thinking straight and remembering stuff. I’m a very logical person, so not being able to think straight is pretty much a nightmare. There’s no denying that I’ve always had many balls in the air – maybe too many. About six months ago, I dropped a...

About a month ago, I shared my thoughts on the state of Mizuu and how I felt about working on the app and the app itself. I told you that I had started to lose my passion and that I wanted to make a change for the better. I went on to tell you that I’d be starting over with Mizuu -reimagining it from the bottom. That’s exactly what I’m been doing ever since. I’ve been reimaging it. When I released the first version of Mizuu, it was only available for tablets on Android 3.0 or newer. That equated roughly 0.1 percent of the devices on Android Market, as it was back then. I really didn’t care about the size of the user base. I felt that it was necessary in order to achieve what I wanted to achieve. Why should I limit myself due to a limited user base when I knew that it’d eventually grow to be so much more? My passion isn’t about creating something for everyone. It’s about creating something groundbreaking – even if that means limiting my user base. My passion is about exploring new platforms and use cases. There really weren’t many Android tablets back when I released Mizuu. Same thing goes for Android TV today. Its user base is quite limited at the moment, but it shows great promise and it’s perfect for media consumption – just like Android tablets. Drum rolls, please… I’m happy to say that the upcoming version of Mizuu is being developed exclusively for Android TV devices. I believe that Android TV is the media platform of the future, and I want to get in on it as...

Hi everyone! I started working on Mizuu back in June 2011, so it’s been developed for for almost four years now. That in itself is quite an achievement for me, as I usually like to start projects, but have a hard time maintaining interest. Mizuu was different. It was an incredible learning experience, but it was more than that because it also revolved around something that I genuinely enjoy: Movies and TV shows. Recently, however, I’ve begun losing interest in Mizuu.Or rather, I’ve begun losing interest in Mizuu in its current state. It’s not that I don’t enjoy movies or TV shows anymore nor that I don’t enjoy developing Android applications. It’s the fact that there’s come an ever-growing list of wanted features and demand from the thousands of new users. It’s been coming for quite some time now, but I really feel like Mizuu has shifted away from what I originally imagined. My vision for the application is a simple, intuitive and effective way of both managing and consuming your content. In all honesty that’s not the case right now. Just take a look at the app settings or many of the crowded overflow menus. The current state is the result of years of continuous changes, additions and removals. It’s the result of a learning experience in software engineering, meaning that it’s really the result of bad software engineering. It’s also the result of almost being too proactive when dealing with user suggestions. Don’t get me wrong, though. Some suggestions are very good, but there’s always been a lot of different suggestions regarding functionality, and I’m blaming myself for having listened too much. I’ve added...

Hi everyone! Over the last month, I’ve read and responded to well over a thousand e-mails as well as hundreds of messages on various sites – and quite frankly, it’s exhausting. I spend the majority of my spare time answering messages, and I hardly ever work on Mizuu anymore. It’s been 24 days since I wrote any meaningful code for Mizuu. Honestly, I’m not happy with the situation. My hobby is developing Android applications – not providing user support to thousands of people each month. Thankfully, it seems like the load has been lifted a bit now, so I’ll try to get some actual work done soon. If anyone has any ideas of how I’ll be able to better scale user support, please don’t hold back. Here’s what’s planned for the next release: Support for the new API on Trakt.tv Updated DLNA library Huge refactoring of file sources and library updates Bug fixes – mainly for stuff related to TV shows I don’t have any estimate of when it’ll be ready. Also, I’d love to use this opportunity to encourage all Android developers that use Mizuu to contribute to the code. Mizuu has been open source for quite some time now, and I’d love to see it become a large project that’s developed and maintained by several people out in the open. As always you can find the source code on the GitHub repo....